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Noun: emphasis (emphases)  em-fu-sis
  1. Special importance or significance
    "the red light gave the central figure increased emphasis";
    - accent
     
  2. Intensity or forcefulness of expression
    "his emphasis on civil rights";
    - vehemence, vehemency
     
  3. Special and significant stress by means of position or repetition
     
  4. The relative prominence of a syllable or musical note (especially with regard to stress or pitch)
    "he put the emphasis on the wrong syllable";
    - stress, accent

Derived forms: emphases

Type of: grandness, importance, inflection, intensity, intensiveness, prosody, rhetorical device

Encyclopedia: Emphasis, Stuttgart 1961